By Paul Ferris
Editor, Linux Today
Over the recent years of Microsoft’s grand reign, several things
have happened.
The buying public has become convinced that operating systems
will be a mystery of operation. That things just break, and people
should just accept that as normal. That security is nothing
important, people can expect viruses and misuse of their personal
information — it’s normal.
However, what I’m going to focus on here is something outside of
the realm of technical operating system quality. This damage has
taken place in the eye of the press, and therefore, in the eye of
the public.
Put some company officials in an interview light, have them talk
about where they are today or where they intend to go in the next
few years and watch the damage. It usually centers around
announcing either technology that is suspiciously going to do the
same thing as a competitor’s product, or new technology that’s
going to do something different or better than a competitor’s new
idea.
FUD(*) doesn’t operate in the distinct realm of programmers and
logic bits that are either on or off. FUD operates in the human
psyche, in the very eye of negative emotion itself; Fear. The
damage over the years has been up until recently, very speculative.
The debate is over, however. Microsoft has lost the anti-trust
trial with almost nothing in their court to show. They may have won
some kind of war of push and shove, but a Federal judge has ruled
that they have without out a doubt used their monopoly power in a
negative way. I wager that a good portion of this misuse has been
through intentionally spreading FUD.
When you motivate a good portion of your technical sales from
the perspective of FUD, there are a lot of “yes buts”. For
example:
“I know that Linux is a superior operating system,
but (insert FUD reason to parrot here)”.
I’m not speaking speculatively here, I’ve heard them all as a
person who’s implemented Windows NT, Unix and Linux solutions. The
reasons for the lack of choice when it comes to Linux are almost
without exception based upon fear.
Even from people that trust me. An old boss of mine called me up
the other day, and wanted me to help him choose some software to
run some simple web serving tasks in his department. He’s known me
for a very long time, and depended upon me to manage his systems
for years. But the first words out of his mouth when I suggested
Linux had to do with how the people running his computers would
respond to something so different. It was fear, plain and
simple.
I will argue that Microsoft has fostered this environment, in
total, with their monopoly power. In the past, people would get
bludgeoned when their superior technology was overrun by things
like mail serving products that won’t speak to anything but their
own kind as an example. Office suites, or web servers — it’s a big
list.
The products are a one-two punch. The negative marketing is the
first punch and the lack of inter-operability is the second.
“It may be more secure, but will it run Outlook
Express and Internet Explorer?!? Do you think Microsoft will port
Office to it?”
The tide is turning, but we will likely face a wall of FUD for
years to come.
People don’t like it when I use war terminology, but I’ve come
to the conclusion that the analogy matches when viewed from the
Microsoft perspective. The Linux front is not a war front, though.
To understand why, you need to understand that when Linux pries the
door open far enough, there will be room for many choices. FreeBSD,
NetBSD, OpenBSD, BEOS, Mac, OS/2 and other operating systems will
likely provide choices to the buying public.
People will have a choice of operating systems again. Linux or
any other Free Software product in a high spot will enforce
standards by defining them well and in a prominent, easy to access
method. That is why we are not at war, and Microsoft is. We have
nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Microsoft has everything
to lose when their monopoly power is neutralized — at least it
appears that they think of it that way.
I won’t go into what will happen to Microsoft when soon the
roads of inter-operability are opened. I can’t. History doesn’t
dictate any good examples of what’s going on right now with Linux.
To speculate without a good model would be pretty pointless. To
speculate in these accelerated changing times and with no
historical model would be insanity.
I am willing to bet that it will be more interesting than
anything you can imagine, however. Imagine being able to choose a
technical solution on its merits, and not because it’s got the
correct sticker on the side of the box. Not because it’s the only
thing the boss thinks will work, without understanding the problem.
Not because you think everyone else will be out of business. That’s
what I’m imagining right now.
“But, what if when Microsoft ships Windows 2000,
your SAMBA breaks and they can’t reverse engineer some new TCP/IP
protocol or something?”
Being a savvy technical person working in an organization during
these times of disillusion and change has been very trying.
Watching as bad decisions are made and expensive, proprietary
products are implemented over good open ones. Or having the victory
of installing Linux where a dozen people said it wouldn’t work. Or
worse yet they bet it wouldn’t work at all and hoped that you would
fail trying.
There’s excitement for you. There’s “interesting” from
everyone’s point of view, but your own. This is why we have to
stamp out FUD. This is why the Linux movement is more important
than Linux itself. Linux represents more than an operating system.
It represents the freedom to choose the right solution on its
merits and not its fear lessening factors.
If we can succeed in gaining a foothold of even 30%, we will
have “won” this war of fear. We will have established a new model
of choice, one based upon technical merits and freedom over
marketing hype. This is the “war” that Microsoft is ultimately
losing. It’s a war driven by unconscious undercurrents. Exposing
those undercurrents to scrutiny will lessen their grip upon
corporate managers and decision makers.
“I’ll never use Linux here.”
“Why?”
“There’s too many different
versions!”
There’s a lot of talk among people about the “Linux Community”
as a group of developers only. We’re more than developers. There
are people that just do documentation, tech support, web support,
and so on. But the Linux Community is larger than that. For every
developer, there are scores of users that are extremely
technologically savvy. There are end users that use it at home.
There are administrators, marketeers, industrialists, salesmen,
classroom users — a lot of people that are involved in many ways
too broad to mention.
Each person that I’ve met that has been touched by Linux has
typically come away in awe. Yet they don’t usually consider
themselves part of the community. As Emmett Plant stated in his
Welcome
Wagon editorial, we can all be a part of the community by being
a bit more social about Linux.
We can all fight FUD this way as well. Where you see it, it
should be responded to. Flaming isn’t necessary and is usually
ineffective, just write the editor of the magazine and explain that
the article in question was technically wrong, or overly
speculative about the future. If you hear a co-worker spouting
about how Linux isn’t used in big numbers, stop them and quietly
explain that it’s used for the highest percentage of web servers.
Tell them your own experiences.
You don’t have to argue. Just your explanation will be enough.
They will begin to doubt their own doubts. One at a time, the fears
that divide will be squashed, and the reign of choice will
begin.
My cynicism is not dead here. I know that there will always be
room for negative motivating factors in some companies’ marketing
arsenals. Yet the Internet has brought us a new medium, one that is
harder to control, and therefore, harder to hide lies behind. It
has also brought about an age of extremely fast change, one where
previous tactics of fear, uncertainty and doubt are becoming less
effective.
“Man, that new mail server is cool. We should have
gotten Linux in here sooner.”
Tactics like vapor-ware (announcing products that may never
exist), and stall-ware (announcing products with long delivery
dates) are now less effective, because they come out as
announcements of delay, where in the past they appeared as
announcements of products with acceptable time delivery.
Times are indeed changing, and all of these tactics are getting
to be extremely well known. The buying public is less the violin in
the monopolist’s hands, and more than ever the skeptic. By lacking
the same kinds of marketing departments, we again prove that we are
not fighting the war, and especially not fighting
it on Microsoft’s terms.
Linux Today has begun a new era of this lack of fighting by
announcing the Linux Counter-FUD
Pages. By turning the spotlight on all the major FUD issues we
can find, our objective is to give the community a place where
negative and destructive marketing tactics that rely on FUD can be
effectively countered.
We believe the best way we can do this is by simply organizing
the information in the mainstream press that refutes specific FUD
points. By making this information easily accessible, we hope to
provide the Linux community with a resource they can draw on to
counter FUD in conversations with colleagues. We hope that
journalists in the mainstream press will find this resource so
valuable that they will begin to make use of it in ‘doing their
homework’ — researching what their colleagues have said
on the Linux-related topic they are getting ready to write
about.
Inform yourself. Please take some time to read the Linux Today Counter-FUD
Site. Especially if you are cynical about us being at war. Even
if you are on the other side.
After reading it, you’ll clearly see that not only are we
involved in a war of fear, uncertainty and doubt, and not only have
we not fought it, but that even so, we are still winning.
(*)FUD: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Marketing tactics involving
the production of doubts in the mind of customers, as a method to
get them to buy your product instead. Marketing tactics of the
past.
The quotes in this article are of general form, from memory, and
are not to be associated with any particular individual.
Paul Ferris is a paid employee of Internet.com, and the site
developer for Linux Today.